Marquette University and Cafeteria Catholicism

Since I’m not a Catholic, it’s not really my place to criticize buffet Catholicism. But this sort of thing really irks me:

Marquette University announced benefits to the same-sex spouses of faculty and staff, in the wake of controversy surrounding the aborted hiring of a lesbian dean.

The benefits will go into effect at the beginning of the 2012 calendar year at the Catholic school, although the full details will not be given to faculty and staff in October of this year. The policy requires the same-sex relationship to be a registered domestic partnership with the state of Wisconsin.

In the university announcement, University President Robert Wild states he had difficulty reconciling the Jesuit principle of Cura Personalis, Care for the Whole Person, with the refusal of benefits to domestic partners, ultimately leading him to expand benefits after consulting with the incoming president and board of trustees.

William Kurz, a professor of theology at the school, said that the policy change was contrary to Catholic doctrine. In our promotion of diversity and inclusion, we can confuse where a Catholic school teaches and stands for, he said.

I can understand the pressure President Wild must be under to cave in to the gay-rights crowd. But why use some “Jesuit principle” to provide cover for his action? Does he really think anyone is buying it? And how does he not have “difficulty reconciling” the policy with, as Kurz points out, Catholic doctrine?